First off: ipad and car, while expensive, is NOTHING, compare to rent or mortgage, and student loans. People usually don't go bankrupt over one new iPad every 3 years or a new car every 6 years, but they can easily go bankrupt making bad investment with debt (mortgage, student loans).
The biggest problem with today's income vs debt is that the assumption when people borrow and the return of what they can get down the road is mismatched. For example: they were told going to Duke or Columbia to get a master in film making is a good investment, but when they graduated with a 150k student loan they found jobs that are only 5k a year better than their coworkers going to a state school with only 15k in student loan (like Steven Spielberg from Cal State Long Beach).
The other problem is people falsely believe that buying a home is always better than paying someone else rent. In my area just the insurance, interest (assume 20% down) and property tax alone on the same house can be a $13k a month payment vs a $8k rent. If you factor in the 20% down payment's opportunity cost in the S&P 500 it would probably end up being $15k a month vs 8k rent. I "sometime" regret buying a 1M condo in the ideal school district to let my inlaw live in it so my daughters can use that school district. We know what we sign up for but still, it is not the best financial descision.
Those who do it to "get into the real estate" because they were told by Rich Dad Poor Dad that they shouldn't pay other people's mortgage, were the one to get screwed when the market go down and they lose everything and their credit score. Meanwhile the "agents", or in this case the people who make money helping your get into real estate, making a cut on books and seminar and support services like management and financing, never loses the money the investors do.
We picked up 3 houses off short sales and foreclosure in 2010, at the then "market" price, off 50% from the peak price. We were lucky we didn't buy anything during the peak for investment (I did buy my own home in 06 so that was some lost too, like 20% from the peak to bottom, but still it is ok), otherwise we would be screwed.
Regarding to other debt: I once put my paid for new car to the credit union to get a 1.5% loan. The lady at the counter ask me why I am doing that, I told her 1.5% is way lower than my mortgage so I'm going to leverage that to lower my mortgage. I also decline all gap insurance and told her I'll just ride it out, it is just financial engineering to me anyways. She probably haven't seen people play with debt like that.
